


So Batman Lied (What else is new?)

by CrimeAlley1048



Category: Batfamily - Fandom, Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 16:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3776083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimeAlley1048/pseuds/CrimeAlley1048
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick Grayson isn't actually dead, and when his brothers find out, they're less than pleased.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'm Pretty Sure I Hate You

“Hello?”

Tim stopped halfway down the hall. He hadn’t exactly been avoiding the open door, but he hadn’t said anything on his way past either. You had to be careful with Damian, or at least Tim did. He wasn’t sure he was welcome.

“Drake?” Well, he was busted now.

Tim leaned against the doorframe. “Hey.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for Bruce.” 

“He went to a meeting.”

“Oh.” Alright, what was he supposed to do now? It’s not like he could just leave.

“So, um… What’s going on?” Damian’s room was a mess— all of his clothes were stacked in piles on the floor, and his desk was sitting on it’s side. One of the ceiling panels was hanging open.

“I’m rearranging it,” Damian told him. “I could feel all of your hands on my stuff.”

“Well you were kind of dead.”

“I noticed, Drake, thank you.” Damian pulled open one of his drawers and snatched out a pile of papers. “Father won’t be home until dark.”

“I guess I’ll wait. Do you want you want a hand with that?” Tim asked, gesturing to the upturned desk. Damian was headed to his closet, but he stopped long enough to raise an eyebrow and lift the desk with one hand.

“I think I’m good.”

“Right. I forgot about… that. Sorry.”

Damian shrugged. “Pass me those books?”

“Sure, where do you want them?”

Damian tapped the bookshelf beside him and kept on rummaging through his closet. He pulled a spare blanket from one of the corners— when he threw it behind him, it hit the floor in a puff of dust, making them both cough. 

“Damn,” Damian muttered, “Pennyworth should be ashamed.” He was on his tiptoes, stretching for the top shelf, but he couldn’t reach far enough. “Can you get me that storage box?”

“I thought you had it covered.”

Damian sighed. “Father says I’m not allowed to fly in the house. Stop _smiling,_ Drake. It isn’t funny.”

Okay, but it kind of was. What with all the fighting the two of them did, sometimes Tim had trouble remembering how young Damian was. But wow, he was small. Tiny. He couldn’t reach high shelves, and he wasn’t allowed to fly because his dad told him no. That was adorable. Of course, Tim knew better than to actually say it out loud because Tim wasn’t an _idiot._

“Drake! Box.”

“Right, sorry. Do you want the canvas on top?”

“Canvas? What— no. Leave it.”

“Can I see?”

_“No.”_

“Alright, fine. Wait, are you okay?” Damian was crouched in front of his bookshelf, very interested in his stack of novels. “Damian?”

“Of course I’m okay.”

“Damian, are you _crying_?”

“ _I said I’m fine.”_

But he clearly wasn’t? What the hell? “Damian, what’s going on?”

“Get out of my room, Drake.”

“Okay, now I’m definitely looking,” Tim told him, reaching for the canvas.

_“Don’t.”_

“Now what have we got over— oh god, Damian, I’m so sorry—”

It was a half-finished painting with a photograph paper-clipped to the corner: Damian and Dick sitting at the kitchen table. Dick was holding a piece of Damian’s toast, and Damian was reaching for it. They were both laughing.

“Was this for him?”

Damian looked up from his shelf— He really was crying. “It was supposed to be a Christmas present,” he mumbled. “But then I died and he died and I—just leave me alone.”

What should he do? The hell if he knew, he couldn’t handle something like this, not when it was Damian. Damian _hated_ him. What a nightmare.

“Hey.” He sat down on the floor. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have looked. You were right.”

Damian pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his head in his arms. “I’m always right.”

“Most of the time, yeah. Listen, I don’t really know what to tell you about… you know, except— I mean, I can’t promise you anything, but— you were dead too.”

_“I noticed, Drake, thank you.”_

“And so was Jason. And we thought Bruce was dead that one time. Well, you guys did anyway.”

“Do you have a point?”

“I’m just saying that you’re all back now. And I don’t see why Dick should be an exception, okay? At this point, it’s statistically unlikely.”

“Because heaven forbid one of us should die permanently, like a normal person.”

“C’mon, we both know that if that’s going to be anyone, it’ll be me.”

“Good.”

“Oh my god, Damian. We can look into it, okay? We’ll figure something out.”

Downstairs, the door slammed. Damian looked up, resting his chin on his knees. “You found my cave,” he said, jabbing a thumb at the ceiling.

“Bruce did.”

“Did Grayson get his package?”

“Yeah.” Tim smiled. “He called me about it because he was so excited. He thought it was really funny.”

Damian nodded. “You like pizza, right?” Tim asked. “You want to go get a pizza?”

“What, with you?”

“Um, yeah, that was the idea. We can get Jason to come too. That’s probably him downstairs—he said he was going to drop by.”

Jason stuck his head in the door. “Did somebody say pizza?”

“There, see? Speak of the devil.”

“I heard that,” Jason told him, “and it was rude. You should be ashamed.”

“Uh huh.” Tim turned back to Damian. “Pizza? Yes? No?”

“Fine,” Damian said. “As long as Todd comes. I’m not going anywhere alone with you.”

“If there’s pizza, I’m in. The hell did you do to your room?”

“He’s cleaning,” Tim told him, as he offered Damian a hand. “Come on. If we hurry, we can be back before Bruce.” 

Damian took his hand, and Tim helped him up. “Thanks,” Damian said. He brushed past Tim on his way to the door. “But I still hate you.”

Right. Of course he did.


	2. Honestly, We Should Have Known

Damian set down his sketchpad and looked at his watch. It was ten forty-five— Father was late. Should he be worried?  
It was probably fine, he decided. Father was perfectly capable of handling himself. Of course, so was Damian, and he was still stuck in the cave. Sure, he understood what they were doing. He was dead for a year, and they were only trying to make sure it didn’t happen again. That didn’t make it any less annoying— especially since these days, he could lift the lot of them at once, if he wanted. He knew because he’d tried.  
There was also the other thing: he was pretty certain they were watching him to make sure he was still sane. Thanks a lot, Todd. Go ahead and ruin it for everyone. Damian sighed.  
Father had left at noon, in one of his disguises. He’d said something about infiltrating a arms trafficking ring? Damian wasn’t sure. All he knew was, patrol started in fifteen minutes, and the only Batman in sight was Father’s cowl thrown across the top of his chair. The monitors were blank, Pennyworth was still upstairs, and there was nothing to do except sit around and sketch the cave trophies. So far, the highlight of his day had been when Drake dropped in for dinner— and that was just sad.  
Damian put the finishing touches on his drawing of the dinosaur and looked around for another model. There was the batmobiles, obviously, but he’d done those before. Same for the giant penny. He glanced past the enormous playing card, Todd’s memorial case, his own memorial case (still weird), and onto— No. Oh _God_ no, he wasn’t going to look at that. He wasn’t.  
He wasn’t going to cry either. He’d done that too many times, since he’d found out.  
Ten forty-seven. Surely Father would show up soon. If he didn’t, well, Damian hadn’t broken any rules in a while. Sometimes you had to sneak out, consequences be damned. He’d take a car, he decided. Necessary? No, but it would get the point across. Perhaps he could find Drake, and then—  
Father’s cowl was blinking red. The hell? He’d never seen it do that before. Maybe there was a malfunction? Damian climbed down from his crevice and poked the flashing light with a spare batarang. When it didn’t explode, he scooped up the headpiece and looked inside. It was a transmission, he realized. Someone was trying to contact Batman.  
Damian paused to check his blind spots because if Pennyworth walked in for this, he would never hear the end of it. The coast seemed to be clear, however, so he slid the cowl over his head. It was much too big for him, but once he was inside, he could hear a man’s very fuzzy voice.  
“Birdwatcher to Mr. Malone? Are you there, Mr. Malone?”  
Damian knew who Mr. Malone was— that was one of Father’s aliases, the one he used to speak to petty criminals. But Birdwatcher? Suspicious.  
“Birdwatcher to Mr. Malone. This is a secure line. Are you there?”  
Secure line, ha. Not anymore it wasn’t because Damian was curious, and he was going to take this call. It probably needed a password. What would Batman say?  
“This is a secure line,” he said, in his father’s voice. “Continue.”  
It worked— the connection sharpened. Damian sat down in the big chair and spun around, pleased with himself. Maybe today wouldn’t be a total loss after all. The man on the other side of the line sighed in relief.  
“Great, I have news. Remember that file I told you about? The one from the matron’s office?”  
He paused for a reply, but Damian couldn’t give it. He couldn’t breathe. _Oh god._ He almost fell out of his chair because the ground was spinning, and he could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, and all of a sudden, the lights in the cave were too bright. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t remember Batman’s voice. It didn’t matter anymore, like it didn’t matter that his father’s footsteps were echoing behind him and he was going to be caught. He didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything except the voice in his ear.  
“Mr. Malone?”  
Oh god, it was really him. Damian scrubbed desperately at the tears falling down his cheeks.  
_“Grayson?”_


	3. Vive la Revolution

“Ow!” Jason said. He’d tried to flop onto Damian’s bed, but the mattress was surprisingly stiff. “Your bed is terrible.”

Damian shrugged. “It’s what I’m used to.”

Oh, right. Now that he thought about it, Jason didn’t remember League beds being particularly comfortable. He watched as Damian swept all his stuff into drawers, including the sketchbook Tim was trying to page through.

“Please don’t.”

“Sorry. So… what are we going to do?”

Well, that was the question, wasn’t it? Jason didn’t really know what he wanted yet, but the other two were looking at him, so he figured it was time to make a decision. 

“I guess the best thing is to stay together,” he told them. “Work as a team or whatever it is Bruce is always on about.”

“So we’re not forgiving them?” Damian asked.

“Of course we’re not. Even I never messed up _this_ badly. I think we’re all entitled to a little—” he broke off when he heard footsteps coming towards the door. “Oh, here we go.”

“It’s Grayson,” Damian told them, after he’d glanced at the door. “Incoming.”

How did he even know? It was probably one of his stupid superpowers. Seriously, on what universe was that fair? Jason filed that away to complain about it later. He had bigger problems, like Dick’s voice on the other side of the door.

“Guys? Bruce says we’re having a family meeting downstairs, so—”

“OH MY GOD, YOU’RE _ALIVE?”_ Jason yelled, as loudly as he could. “Wait, that’s old news, isn’t it?”

There was a few seconds of uncomfortable silence. “I said I was sorry,” Dick muttered. “Can you just open the door?”

“We’re having our own meeting,” Tim told him. “We’ll be down later.”

“I heard you talking, you said this was a Robin meeting. Last time I checked, that includes me, so open the—”

“Sorry, Dickie,” Jason interjected, “I think you misheard. This is a _Dead_ _Robins_ meeting. And since, as it turns out, _you weren’t actually dead,_ I’m afraid you don’t qualify.”

“Tim’s in there.”

“Tim’s here as my guest.”

“Fine! Damian—”

“Damian didn’t invite you,” Jason said, turning to the younger kid, “Did you, Damian?”

Damian bit his lip. He looked conflicted, but Tim put a hand on his shoulder. 

“You didn’t.”

Damian nodded. “I didn’t,” he told the door.

“Damian, come on.”

“No.”

“Please? If you don’t want me in your room, just come downstairs. We’re gonna talk it out.”

Tim snorted. “I think we might be past that.”

“Fine, you know what? I’m coming in anyway.” The doorknob started to jiggle— Dick was picking the lock, and it wouldn’t take him long.

“Aw, Christ,” Jason whispered, “I don’t suppose we can stop him?” He noticed Damian side-eying his desk. “You can, can’t you?”

“I could,” Damian muttered. “It would be painful.”

“For Dick?”

“Yes.”

“Awesome, do it.”

Damian sighed, but he slid an electrical panel out of one his drawers and passed it over to Jason. 

“The hell is this? Are these _cameras?”_

“Some of it, yeah. This is my room, it’s not like I’m going to leave it open for all of you—” He punched a few buttons, and the screens lit up. “—idiots to come ransack whenever you feel like it.” He pointed to one monitor, which showed Dick kneeling outside in the hallway. “He’s almost done. It’s the one on the far left.”

Tim was examining the electronics over Jason’s shoulder. “This is actually… really well done,” he whispered. “I’m— Wait, that’s my _room.”_

“Is it really, Drake? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Oh my god, Damian, _privacy—_ Where is this, behind my bookshelf?”

“Yes.”

“I’m taking it down.”

“Fine. I don’t need it anymore.”

“…”

“I can see just as well without it now.”

“Oh my god,” Tim hissed. “You’ve got to be _kidding me.”_

_“_ Suck my _x-ray vision, Drake.”_

“Gentlemen,” Jason reminded them, “Bigger problems.”

“Guys?” Dick was leaning against the keyhole, trying to hear their conversation. “Guys! Come on.”

“Maybe we should go out the window?” Tim suggested. “Try the roof?”

“We might as well stay here,” Damian told him. “He can’t hear us.”

“Guys!”

“See?”

The three of them stared at Damian’s camera, which showed Dick pouting against the door. He pulled out his phone.

“He better not be calling Bruce because I swear I’m not talking to—”

Jason’s phone started to ring. He’d been hoping for that— he’d even changed his ring tone, just in case.

_‘Cause baby now we got bad blood, you know it used to be mad love… So take a look what you’ve done, ‘cause baby now we got baaaad blood…”_

“You’re joking,” said Tim.

“Please, I never do that. It brings back bad memories.”

_Now we got problems, and I don’t think we can soooolve ‘em… You made a really deep cut, and baby now we got bad blood…”_

“Oh my god,” groaned Dick, from outside the door.

Jason grinned. “I’d suggest you let go of the doorknob.”

“What? No. I’m coming in.”

“Well, I warned you,” Jason told him, and he plugged his phone into Damian’s iPod dock, blaring the music. Then he hit the button on the far left, which sent an electric charge through the doorknob that Dick was still holding. 

“OW!”

He dropped his phone in shock, which— in the biggest stroke of luck Jason could remember— slid straight under the door, into Damian’s room. 

“ _Seriously, Damian? Seriously?”_

Jason snickered. This was even better than last year’s snowblower incident.

“Hey, Dick-head, if you really want to come in here, you know how to qualify.”

“Jason, I swear to _frick_ if you don’t turn that music off—”

So of course, Jason cranked the volume even higher. He pulled out his guitar— he’d picked it up from his old room on the way down the hall— and strummed along.

_DID YOU THINK WE’D BE FINE? STILL GOT SCARS ON MY BACK FROM YOUR KNIFE—_

“JASON, TURN IT OFF.”

Damian was sitting on his bed holding his ears, but Tim was grinning at him. Jason grinned back—he knew he was being ridiculous. He knew he was enjoying this too much, and part of him felt bad about it, but honestly, he was just relieved that for once, he wasn’t the bad kid. Turned out, the moral high ground had a nice view, and it was kind of cool that his brothers were looking to him, instead of the semi-perfect individual swearing at him from the hallway. 

“JASON PETER TODD, YOU’D BETTER— oh no, it’s okay we were just—”

Ah, shit. Bruce. _Think quick, Todd, think quick._ Jason lunged for the volume, but before he could get there, the dock cut out. All the lights in the room died. He guessed Bruce must have cut the power or something.

Jason pulled his guitar back into his lap and kept on singing— if he was going to be in trouble, he might as well earn it.

“ _Bandaids don’t fix bullet holes, you say sorry just for show—”_

Dick’s phone went to voicemail, so there was the end of that. Probably the end of the Robins resistance movement too— the door clicked open as the lights came back on.

“Downstairs,” Bruce commanded.

He looked pissed. For a few seconds, none of them moved. Bruce glared at the three of them, one at a time—Jason did his best to stare him down, but as much as he hated to admit it, Bruce was really intimidating. Tim ducked his head away. Damian was biting at his lip again. It looked like he was going to cave.

He did. _Called it,_ Jason though, as Damian brushed past Bruce on his way out. Tim followed pretty quickly— no point in staying now.

“Fine,” Jason muttered. Off he went, to his very first family meeting. This was going to be a _disaster_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ringtone is Bad Blood, by Taylor Swift. I get a kick out of imagining Jason singing trashy breakup songs.


	4. Here Comes the Sun

Dick Grayson wasn’t having the best week. As a matter of fact, he was having the worst week since, well, he wasn’t sure. Probably the thing with the evil Justice League? That had been a rough couple of days.  
Anyway, it was bad. It wasn’t like he could really complain either because it was his own fault— his and Bruce’s. Technically, the whole thing had been Bruce’s idea. Dick wasn’t sure why he’d agreed to go through with it.  
_Why_ , he thought, peeking through the slit in the living room doors, _didn’t I see this coming?_ He watched Alfred lift his broom off the cleaning cart and set it against an overturned sofa. He was probably going to be in there for a while— there was a decent sized hole in the wall. Damian had gotten upset during last night’s family meeting, and it hadn’t been pretty. He’d actually screamed— at length, shrill ten-year-old-voice and all— at Bruce, until he’d lost control and blasted through the plaster. Other highlights had included a truly terrible phone call with Babs and Jason’s pointed rendition of Rhianna’s “Take a Bow.” He’d gotten all the way through a chorus and the bridge before Bruce had blown his top.  
Basically, the whole thing had been a disaster, and Dick’s entire family hated him. He kind of hated himself too, because really, what did he think would happen? Everyone would be cool with it? Hey, Dick! We’ve been living in misery for the past six months because we thought you were dead, but now that you’re back, everything is perfect again! We totally forgive you for letting us believe that we’d lost _yet another_ person we loved!  
Poor Tim— he’d lost everybody now, and Babs— her entire life had gone to hell in less than a year. Oh god, he was a horrible person. How could he do that to her?  
Now that he thought about it, it was obvious that he should have handled the situation differently, but that was the thing: he hadn’t thought about it at all. He’d just… done it. That was a problem he had. People were always talking about how Jason was too impulsive, but Jason wasn’t the one that jumped off buildings for fun, was he?  
On the other side of the door, Alfred was digging through his CD collection. At least some things were consistent, like the lemony smell of furniture polish from Alfred’s cart or his low-key Beatles obsession. Dick smiled at the opening bars of “Here Comes the Sun,” until Alfred turned around and saw him standing there. He gave him the expressionless look of scorn that only Alfred was capable of, and Dick ducked away. Maybe offering to help clean up was a bad idea.  
Where to now? He should probably go find Bruce. Bruce would know what to do, wouldn’t he? At the very least, he would have a mission to run, or something else to keep him busy.  
Dick wandered upstairs, humming to himself. _Here comes the sun… Here comes the sun…_ He always forgot how much he loved that song. It made him think of the kind of day that happened once in a blue moon in Gotham, where the mist burned away and you could see the sky. If there hadn’t been any rain, and you caught the pollution on an off day, you could see all the way across Blüdhaven from the rooftops— the kind of day where he would climb trees with Tim or take Damian to get ice cream.  
You know, if they weren’t furious with him. Dick sighed as he reached the top of the stairwell. He hadn’t thought this one through either— if he was going to get to Bruce’s room, he’d have to walk past all his brothers first. He wasn’t sure he was up for that. He wasn’t even sure Bruce was _in_ his room.  
The others were; Tim and Jason had both stayed the night. Damian’s door was open— it usually was— and Dick could hear Jason in his room, strumming at his guitar. He’d hardly put it down since he’d figured out how much it annoyed Bruce. Annoyed all of them, actually.  
Alright, Grayson, suck it up. Dick set out down the hall, singing as he went.  
_“Here comes the sun, and I say it’s all right…”_  
He poked his head into Damian’s room and grinned at him.  
_“Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter. Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here—”_  
Damian looked up from his novel. “Leave.”  
“Okay then.” Dick backed out the door, but he noticed Damian reaching for his iPod, like he needed to hear the rest of the song. So that was something.  
Damian. God, all he wanted was to stay with Damian. He just wanted a hug, or even a civil conversation— anything. The last time he’d seen the kid, he’d been looking at a corpse. He couldn’t get the image out of his head.  
Dick sighed, but he kept going.  
_“Here comes the sun… Here comes the sun, and I say it’s all right…”_  
He took a few more steps down the hall and stopped because he could still hear Jason in his room, but he was playing along now. He probably didn’t know he was doing it— music had a way of jumping like that, and Jason, according to last night’s conversation, was “pissed enough to murder Dick and his entire family. (Yeah, I’m including myself. Been there, done that, it was better than this shit.)”  
Dick hovered outside Jason’s door until he reached the next verse. _“Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces. Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been here…”_ He could picture Jason sitting on his bed, gritting his teeth but too stubborn to stop playing now that he’d accidentally committed. _“Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I say it’s all right.”_  
Dick moved into Jason’s room, lounging against the door posts and winking at Tim, who’d ventured into the hallway to see what all the noise was about. Jason rolled his eyes, but he didn’t stop playing. The corners of his mouth were turning up, and Dick knew why: robins singing together. Really, what was the point of having a bird motif if you weren’t going to roll with it? Dick grinned at him.  
_“Sun, sun, sun, here it comes.”_  
Jason was smiling now, full-on, and Tim could see. The three of them stayed there: Dick singing, Jason playing his guitar, Tim whistling along. Down the hall, Damian stepped out of his room, clutching his headphones. He cocked an eyebrow at Tim, who shrugged.  
_“Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting. Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been clear.”_  
Damian had his arms crossed, but he was tapping his fingers against his elbow. Dick grinned— ice melting indeed. _“Here comes the sun (do do do do), here comes the sun.”_  
 _“It’s all right.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here Comes the Sun is by The Beatles.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written before Damian lost his superpowers, so it isn't 100% accurate anymore. My apologies.


End file.
